A capital day out

Ralph Mellon

Grabbed a little piece recently of post-festival Edinburgh, with a trip to our resplendent capital in the company of five-year-old twins.

Two of them, to be precise.

There I was thinking the city might have quietened down at least a little bit after all the sights and sounds of the Festival/Fringe, but it was still mobbed – probably because it was Saturday.

The place was still speckled with a few street ‘entertainers’ – most notably a kilt-clad ‘Star Wars’ stormtrooper – and there was plenty for the not-quite-identical twins to enjoy before the main highlight – Edinburgh Castle.

After a weary trudge uphill to the celebrated landmark, we set about looking at some of the exhibits, which were interesting but not quite enough to hold the attention of a couple of lively five-year-old boys.

Their favourite bit was clambering up on the cannons for a relaxing seat and beholding that spectacular view over the city.

My favourite bit was going on the tram – I’d not travelled before on the system which brought Edinburgh to its knees during construction. But the ride was quite comfortable.

Cult viewing: I’m a huge fan of cult television and often uplifted by the fact that, somewhere amid the morass of channels, an old classic is usually nestling.

As if re discovering the original ‘Hawaii Five-O’ wasn’t enough, last week saw the start of a complete rerun of ‘Kung Fu’, which bizarrely fused the Western with the Far Eastern martial arts craze of the early 1970s.

David Carradine starred as a placid, peaceful Shaolin priest, not so much on the run as on the deadeningly slow trek, in America, where constant flashbacks to his training in the temple help him overcome relentless misdeeds and prejudice.